d all together in spite of radical differences that
will continue to persist. Systems of various kinds are presented--often
at variance with one another; but even these are evidence of a spiritual
life far above the achievements of any single individuals. What must we
do? We must all work on in the direction of the highest: and the higher
we mount the nearer we are to a point of convergence of all the
different syntheses; and out of the union there will be born a synthesis
which will include the whole family of man. We possess already such a
synthesis partially realised here and there in the lives of the greatest
personalities of history; but to the mass of mankind such a synthesis is
little more than a name, even though that name be God or Infinite Love.
The content of the name has to be realised: and this can never come
about except through a deep stirring and longing, through enormous
sacrifices, painful and recurring failures, to issue finally in a
conquest--a height attained by mankind on which the content of God and
Infinite Love will be born in the soul as a living, personal, and
durable experience. When this comes to be--and every genuine effort in
the movement of our higher being brings us nearer to it--there issues
[p.83] an incomparably higher mode of life. Thus a new history is framed
through the spiritual activities of individuals; and something of its
very nature and of the mode by which such a reality can be reached will
become an atmosphere into which future generations will be born, as well
a higher condition than has ever previously existed to hail the entrance
of human souls into the world.

Eucken insists that it is not the movement of democracy towards better
social conditions that will be effective in bringing about such a
change. Much, of course, can be effected by better social conditions.
There are needs to-day in connection with labour which ought to be met.
But at the best they can do no more than touch the periphery of human
existence. A poverty in the "inward parts" will still exist in the midst
of external plenty. But if men and women could be brought to the
consciousness of spiritual ideals and their efficacy, a disposition of
soul and character would be created which would rapidly change the evil
conditions of life and the perplexing problems of capital and labour.
Several writers have gone astray when they have imagined that Eucken has
but scant sympathy with the social needs of our times